They Sang for Horses

Among the Indians of the Southwest, none placed more emphasis on the horse than did the Navajo and the various Apache groups which comprise the Southern Athapascan linguistic family. Now the great horse age of these peoples — an age which had its beginning in the seventeenth century — is coming to an end. In this book Mrs. Clark examines for the first time at length the impact of the horse upon traditional forms of Navajo and Apache folklore during more than three centuries of influence. She shows how the horse, an acquisition from the Spaniards, became the "gift of the gods," and how the storytellers, singers, medicine men — even painters — transformed the new elements in their folklore after the likeness of the old. Using translations of recorded material, she defines or clarifies the horse's symbolic significance in ceremony, song, prayer, custom, and belief. Poetic in tone, scholarly in treatment, its beauty enhanced by six full-color horse paintings by the well-known Indian artists Harrison Begay, Adee Dodge, Andy Tsinajinie, and Beatien Yazz, this book is truly one to be treasured and enjoyed.